Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Telegram that Russia’s attack overnight and on Monday involved “more than a hundred missiles of various types and about a hundred Shahed drones.”
The attack was the largest one in weeks, Reuters reported, with the prime minister saying more than half of the country’s regions were targeted. Officials said it killed at least six people.
Zelenskyy said it proved that limits on Western-supplied weapons need to be dropped.
Ukraine is pushing to use Storm Shadow/SCALP and ATACMS missiles in Russia.
Several of Ukraine’s international partners softened their stance in May, saying that Ukraine could use some weapons to go after military targets on Russian soil. For the likes of the US, UK, and France, that didn’t include long-range weapons on Russian soil.
Zelenskyy said Russian President Vladimir “Putin remains true to himself — it is a sick creature; this has long been clear to everyone. But it is also clear that he can only do what the world allows him to do.”
He said that Ukrainians should face no restrictions on weapons when Russia uses what it wants, including missiles from North Korea.
“The United States, the United Kingdom, France, and other partners have the power to help us stop terror. We need decisions.”
Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine’s foreign minister, made a similar plea on X on Monday. He said that actions other countries can take to help Ukraine include “affirming Ukraine’s long-range strikes on all legitimate military targets on Russian territory.”
Zelenskyy and other Ukrainian officials have long been urging allies to drop their restrictions on weapon use.
The rules mean Ukraine cannot destroy the source of Russia’s attacks and must instead stop each individual strike, which is much more difficult.
In July, Zelenskyy said that Ukraine needs to be able to destroy the aircraft that launch devastating glide bombs at Ukraine, which Russia mostly keeps out of range of Ukraine’s shorter-range weaponry.
Ukraine has been making some of its own long-range weaponry to bridge the gap.
George Barros, a Russia analyst at the US think tank Institute for the Study of War, told BI that Ukraine has had to expend heavy resources to protect its power, infrastructure, and weaponry while “the Russians categorically don’t have to really deal with any of that.”
He said the Western policy “allows Russia to have a sanctuary” from which it can safely launch attacks on Ukraine.
The ISW estimated earlier this month that at least 250 militarily significant targets in Russia were within range of Ukraine’s American long-range ATACMS missiles but that the current restrictions only allow Ukraine to strike 20 of those targets.
Rajan Menon, a senior research scholar at Columbia University’s Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies, told BI that without the restrictions, “obviously the Ukrainians would be in a better position” and that he did not believe Russia’s stretched military was in a position to escalate the conflict if the rules changed.
The EU’s chief diplomat last week said that allies should drop their restrictions on Ukraine, saying it would “strengthen Ukrainian self defence by ending Russia’s sanctuary for its attacks and bombardments of Ukrainian cities and infrastructure” as well as save lives and “help advance peace efforts.”
Kuleba, Ukraine’s foreign minister, said that dropping restrictions would not lead to escalation but instead would “deter Russia, help to reduce terror and the number of Russian attacks, as well as the resulting casualties. Act now, not later. Help us save lives.”
